Thompson Returns to Top of MediaGuardian 100

LONDON, July 17: Mark Thompson, the director-general of the
BBC, is back at the number one spot of MediaGuardian’s annual ranking of the 100 most influential people
in British media, with Apple chief Steve Jobs in second place and News Corp.’s
chairman and CEO Rupert
Murdoch in third.

The 48-year-old Thompson has “led the BBC from the
aftershock of the Hutton report to the most important license fee settlement in
its history,” MediaGuardian said.

Jobs rose to second place after being sixth in last year’s
ranking. Jobs, who since last year has revolutionized television viewing habits
by inking content deals for the iPod, is also the biggest individual
shareholder in The Walt Disney Company following its acquisition of Pixar.

Murdoch remains in the number three spot. MediaGuardian said of the 75-year-old mogul: “Old media or new,
Murdoch's political influence appears undimmed.”

Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page rose from
number 9 to number 4 on the power list, with the newspaper noting, “So
ubiquitous has Google become that it has hard to imagine what we ever did
without it. The ultimate convenience research tool, its founders Brin and Page
are in the midst of transforming it from a search engine into a technology
giant.”

Rising from 19 to 5 on the list is Channel 4’s chief
executive Andy Duncan, who has “overseen an unprecedented year of growth and
ambition,” MediaGuardian said.

Rounding out the top ten are ITV chief Charles
Allen, who dropped from fourth place; BBC Chairman Michael Grade, who
shared the top spot with Thompson last year; the BBC’s director of television,
Jana Bennett, up from last year’s 36 ranking; Microsoft founder Bill Gates, a
new entry at 9; and Associated Newspapers’ editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre.

Other television executives on the list include Channel 4’s
Kevin Lygo (14), BSkyB’s James
Murdoch (15), ITV’s Simon Shaps (16) and BBC News’s Helen Boaden (17).